Momma was UM. Poppa was UM. Going to U of M games since age 7. Older Bro was UM Younger Bro was UM and I went to Cornell because at 5'11" and 180 lbs I was not going to play LB or strong safety at UM. Must say I wasn't good enough to play at Cornell either after ripping up my L knee as a sophomore. I did grow up close to Cleveland and my dad also had Browns tickets when I was a kid and I still have my pro afilliations there though I suffer along with my freinds who are Lions fans as well.

I noticed that the RB's were sometimes not patient enough to wait for seams to open up. There were several running plays where a slight hesitation or cut back would have turned 2 yards into 7. Still I felt that the O line had no push against the D line and the LB's and DB's were able to fill. The O line seemed more solid on pass plays and I noticed as Matti dialed up the blitzes that the O was more successful rolling the QB out and making completions. Multiple great catches by WR's with DB's all over them also. My brother mentioned to me after the scrimmage that he remembers Vikings teams from the late 70's that used a lot of short passes to the RB (Foreman) to get into open space and this substituted pretty well for a weak running game.

I suggest you consider listening to them on discs or on audio books unabridged. The reader (a guy named Dotrice) is spectacular with different voices for all the different characters. If you have a long commute every day or a long trip planned this is wonderful way to make the time pass. I have read all the books and i am now listening to the story at about the same place in the story as the HBO show is now. I love all three and have found that each experience has been exceptional in its own way. HBO has really done an amazing job of adapting these stories to film and as usual on HBO the acting is superb. PS Was there a thread on True Detective? This was amazing TV as well.

Yes- Canteen looked great but so did Funchess, York, Chesson, Dukes, Norfleet, and even Wangler who seems to have great hands. Jake Butt is likely to be back early in the season but AJ Williams, Khaleed Hill looked pretty good as well catching the ball. Shallman, Kerridge and Houma all looked good running routes and had some nice catches in practice as well. All the backs seemed pretty effective catching pases out of the backfield although Green was not as sure handed as Hayes. Even Capatina (walk on?) who holds for place kicking got some reps at slot and made some nice catches in traffic. I think receiver is very strong and Harris just adds to this list. The reciever corps may be the strongest and deepest area of our roster right now on offense. Nice to have great QB's throwing to them also.

His players genuinely seem to like each other and support each other and play as a team with very little selfishness. The other coaches had some teams that played that way (especially Orr) but Coach B seems to have created an atmsophere where that kind of team work is the rule not the exception. Also these teams are the most fun to watch partly because of his offensive strategy. If he could get just a little more intensity of defense we could be in basketball Nirvana.

I took the total number of games played against top 50 RPI by each conference and calculated the winning percentage.

The ACC played 115 games against RPI top 50 and had a .287 winning percentage. For SOS this comes to playing 7.66 games per team against the top 50

The Big 12 (which is actually the big 10) played 141 games against top 50 and won .418 of them. SOS 14.1 games per team against top 50

BIg East played 79 games v. the top 50 and won .266 SOS is 7.9 games per team against top 50

Big 10 (which is actually the big 12) played 119 games agaisnt top 50 and won .370. SOS 9.91 games per team against the top 50.

For those with more ambition than I have, feel free to calculate the winning percentage against the other grouping and compare but this data is enough for me to conclude that the Big 12 (10) is the best conference so far this year. As others have pointed out, the conference playoffs and national tournament will give us a better view of the accuracy of this conclusion.

There are market places for predictions of elections and other future events. I am no expert but doesn't the Vegas line just depend on who is betting and they just try to balance the money on both sides. Is than not somewhat like crowd sourcing/prediction markets?

I found this article (admittedly written by Ohio economists) that suggests that the betting line is not very predictive for NCAA B ball but is better for NFL and NCAA football. They say overall betting markets like the Vegas line are not all that predictive. Hmmmm